No more heavy bags????

Originally Posted by j416to

This stuff has already started to spread. It's the next big thing that's going to hit the beach. My gym threw away all their heavy bags and is now offers courses in Tae Bo and "Karate Body." It's an unhealthy new-age mix of pseudo-martial arts and yoga. The trophy wives love it.

They do skirt the edge of saying it'll teach you to defend yourself, if you just read it quickly. The description of their first DVD includes the line "Create lean muscle without bulk — and feel invincible." And while most of the testimonials explain well, a few imply self-defense, too:

"...an unbeatable combination" and "Cameron is an amazing martial artist. He teaches you to fight with your mind, body and spirit"

But if you read over all his stuff it's clear he's not really saying that -- but if people want to think it I don't think he's stopping them. Still, if it gets people up off their couches it's good as far as I'm concerned.

This stuff has already started to spread. It's the next big thing that's going to hit the beach. My gym threw away all their heavy bags and is now offers courses in Tae Bo and "Karate Body." It's an unhealthy new-age mix of pseudo-martial arts and yoga. The trophy wives love it.

Geez, thats a big shame. Because a striker really needs to power their limbs through a bag to get a sense on how to drive a punch home.

No, it wasn't for those reasons that I was annoyed. It was because I was told that heavy bags didn't fit the "image" of the New Age Yoga- Martial Arts program that the gym wanted to project. It was felt that the non-contact image of this mix of yoga-karate-stretching would be intimidated by the presence of heavy bags, even though the bags were to be stored in a closet, and out of view, during the exercise classes. Thus, they kept the heavy bag ceiling supports, to project a subtle image of martial arts, but actually threw away the heavy bags themselves, to remove all traces of their existence, and to prevent anyone from ever using them outside of class. They were afraid that the obvious visual contrasts between what people were doing in these exercise classes to what other people were practicing on the heavy bags, would be too dramatic, would thus discredit the martial arts claims of their exercise classes. That is what I complained about.

I don't see what's the fuss, anything to get the fat off of Americans is ok. He doesn't say it's self defense. I doubt that most Tae Bo practitioners think they can fight, if any. Most of us can only dream of the trim this guy is getting. Or, well, whatever he may be getting.....

It was discussed here in the past that he claimed training in bjj but did not state any lineage. His new bio points to former Rickson Gracie brownbelt Tiago Vela (?) as his first teacher. It also maintains that he is a blue belt under Rickson and is "training for his blackbelt". It does not allude to him ever competing.

After 2 years of diligent study Cameron officially joined the Rickson Gracie academy and achieved his blue belt in an unprecedented six months.

This blog post suggests a partnership with Jeremy Arel (a well respected Roberto Correa blackbelt and founder of Great Grappling) in late 2009, the result of which would appear to be a number of video tutorials such as this one:

After the videos and single blog post, the GG - Budokon partnership appears to peter off. He has, however, added a Ryan gracie blackbelt to his staff, one Gui Arashiro:

Gui was introduced to Budokon in 2009 when he was invited to become the director of the Budokon®BJJ program. Since then he has earned the rank of Budokon Brown Belt and travels with Kancho and the Budokon®University throughout the US.

As far as his claim that budokon-mma teaches fighting skills goes, the 2012-13 student brochure does indicate that sparring is a part of the curriculum:

WILL I BE SPARRING (FIGHTING) WITH THE MARTIAL ARTS?
Yes. You will learn to spar with other students in order to learn to defend yourself and or friends or family. Being in fear of the violence in others and in yourself is natural. In Budokon you will learn to confront this natural fear of violence in a safe and non aggressive environment. No one is ever harmed or injured in our trainings because safety and sensitivity is our highest priority.

The aliveness of said sparring is not defined, but a look at sparring video suggests full contact kicks with low contact punching and grappling permitted:

Video also exists of budokon bjj rolls:

They've made the claim, and from the evidence out there I'd love to draw a conclusion as to whether it's substantiated, but unfortunately my striking experience is limited. The grappling, though, didn't look that encouraging (I got the feeling they don't roll all that often). Their sparring looked like a cross between taekwondo and inexperienced bjj.

*The brochure is definitely recommended reading. It contains some gems and a very original take on English grammar.